Bespoke self-build design with predictable costs and timing, available now. Really?
At any one time, we offer dozens of plots suitable for an individual new home. Few house-hunters though, consider self-build (ie commissioned by the intended occupants) which account for just 7% of all new homes built each year in the UK and even less in England. This is tiny: across the EU, 40% is common. ‘Grand Designs’ must be partly to blame. Perhaps to bring some drama, or even to reduce envy, the TV show has highlighted how often bespoke projects exceed limits for time, budget and personal stress. Pioneers of up-market system building, such as Huf 9 Haus, have long protested that prefabricated, modular construction overcomes such obstacles. Self-build is so much more popular on the continent, they argue, because there, modular, ‘kit construction’ is the norm.
Modular homes are built using advanced technologies in warm, dry factories, so weather rarely causes delay. Quality is consistent, monitored and demonstrable, and precise schedules of materials and technical data readily available. Thus costs can be fixed and planning and building regulations satisfied efficiently. Despite all of this, in the UK, off-the-shelf designs have met with continued resistance, perhaps because significant customisations have, historically, involved a high degree of extra time and money. This has now changed dramatically.
DIGITAL TWINNING + AI
The catalyst for transformation has been the combining of ‘digital twin’ engineering software with AI. Twinning software creates a digital model of your proposed house, allowing design engineers to test processes such as airflows and heat losses, refine specifications and itemise materials required. With AI, their software can work much, much faster, enabling more experimentation, with greater variations, on any given theme. Thus modular house companies are now offering a far more bespoke home – varying everything from layout and window sizes, to finishes – while maintaining the fixed-price certainty and efficiency that define modern modular construction.
GROWING CHOICE OF SUPPLIERS
Credit must be given to the aforementioned Huf Haus for leading the way here. Having sold many of them, we know that they continue to be popular in the resale market. Others, though, are entering the fray, bringing a broader choice of suppliers, styles and, most importantly, budget. Thus while high-end, finished build costs often exceed £4,000 per square metre (£800,000 for a 200sqm / 2,150 sq ft house), others are offering attractive homes at a third of that. Some also offer literally self-build starter homes (delivered as a kit for you to build on a prepared site), from under £100,000.
SMALL SITE ‘FAST TRACK’ PLANNING PROMISE
In May this year, the government announced new proposals to hasten the granting of planning permission for smaller developments, especially those of fewer than ten homes. This might encourage more owners of potential building plots, such as home owners with large gardens, to consider exploring that potential: we are seeing initial signs of this. It is possible – and indeed our hope – that new design technologies, greater acceptance of modular construction and smoother planning, will generate a significant increase in the provision of swiftly-built, good quality housing, tailored to the needs of the very people who will live in it. To have a home of your own, is a precious thing. To have one you have commissioned and, in no small part, designed, is, as those of our clients who do take the plunge attest, to come home to a very special place indeed.
